History Main / WeightLossHorror

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': In the final two episodes, Walter White has lost so much weight from his cancer that his wedding ring no longer fits on his finger.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* PlayedForDrama in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2''. The player is treated to gradually watching the tall, broad-shouldered and tough-as-nails cowboy [[spoiler:Arthur Morgan]] gradually waste away to NothingButSkinAndBones from [[IncurableCoughOfDeath tuberculosis]], a bacterial infection that was commonly a death sentence for anyone who contracted it in the late 1800s. [[spoiler:This also [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration affects the cores that are tied to his physical health]]. It's actually possible for him to become ''more'' underweight than the game normally allows, and it's practically guaranteed to happen by the time of the final mission.]]
* A PlayedForLaughs example is Bob from the ''Franchise/{{Tekken}}'' series, an {{acrofatic}} character who likes his overweight status. However, in his ''Tekken 6'' ending, after all the effort to win the King of Iron Fist Tournament, he suddenly loses 150 pounds, becoming slim, which is a shock for him. Bob thinks his weight loss is a curse for him, as he also loses his strength and speed gained with the training that made him fat. First being a cameo, this later becomes a separate character in ''Tag Tournament 2'' as "Slim Bob".
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* In "Film/Thinner" the protagonist is cursed by a gypsy to lose weight until he dies.

* PlayedForDrama in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2''. The player is treated to gradually watching the tall, broad-shouldered and tough-as-nails cowboy [[spoiler:Arthur Morgan]] gradually waste away to NothingButSkinAndBones from [[IncurableCoughOfDeath tuberculosis]], a bacterial infection that was commonly a death sentence for anyone who contracted it by the late 1800s. [[spoiler:This also [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration affects the cores that are tied to his physical health]]. It's actually possible for him to become ''more'' underweight than the game normally allows, and it's practically guaranteed to happen by the time of the final mission.]]

** The Blob's girth is entirely due to his mutation. Therefore, when he's [[BroughtDownToNormal completely depowered]] he loses it all, but doesn't lose the excess skin with it. The first time he comments on how disgusting he looks, the second he attempts suicide [[BungledSuicide but can't]] because he can't cut anything vital past all his folds.

* A PlayedForLaughs example is Bob from ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' series, an {{acrofatic}} character that likes his overweight status. However, in his ''Tekken 6'' ending, after all the effort to win the King of Iron Fist Tournament, he suddenly lost 150 pounds, becoming slim, which was a shock for him. Bob thinks his weight loss was a curse to him, losing also his strength and speed gained with the training that made him fat. First being a cameo, later this becomes a separate character in ''Tag Tournament 2'' as "Slim Bob".

* Whoever is chosen as Famine in Apocalypse's Horsemen can cause people to become emaciated by touching them.

* ''The Monkey Treatment'', by Creator/GeorgeRRMartin. A fat guy who's tried every diet inadvertently signs up for the monkey treatment, in which an invisible magic monkey sits on his back and snatches away all his food before he can eat it. At first, this seems to work great -- but then he realizes that for every pound he loses, the monkey gains one, so he's still carrying around the same weight as before. Even worse, as the monkey grows bigger, its malevolence and power over its human host increase as well, and once it's grown big enough, [[spoiler:it begins to completely absorb its host's body into its own, effectively replacing the original person and reducing them to nothing but a shriveled, vestigial appendage]].

** In ''Literature/{{Thinner}}'' a fat lawyer is cursed by a gypsy to lose weight. As in, all of it.
** In the short story ''Quitter's Inc.'', a guy signs up with the eponymous firm to help him quit smoking, only to learn that their methodology is basically 'we will torture, mutilate, and ultimately kill you and your family if you keep smoking.' He manages to give up smoking with only one infraction, but he gains weight during the process. His caseworker at the firm says that he should lose the weight quickly or else they'll return to the 'mutilating your family' thing. Later he bumps into a family member of the coworker that introduced him to the firm and finds out the firm wasn't kidding about that.

* "Fat Farm", by Creator/OrsonScottCard. A very rich, very fat man uses a service to copy himself into a healthy body. Unfortunately, he didn't check to see what happens to the original. Turns out it becomes the property of the cloning company... and they're not very humane with their human resources.
* The ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' book ''Literature/SayCheeseAndDieAgain'' has this trope both PlayedStraight and [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. The male protagonist and his female friend both fall victim to the evil camera, with a picture showing him as morbidly obese, and his female friend as a skeleton. He starts to gain weight involuntarily, she starts to lose it.

* Creator/HGWells's ''The Truth About Pyecraft'': A very fat man takes a potion to lose weight. And he does -- but he doesn't actually become thinner. He just weighs less until he's floating up into the air like a large balloon. A rare PlayedForComedy example.

Maybe a character doesn't like his current shape and decides he's going to drop those pesky pounds if it kills him, and they undertake a rigorous diet and exercise program. Maybe he meets a mysterious on the street who sells them a drug, [[HerbalHealing potion]] or amulet with incredible slimming properties.

Maybe a character doesn't like his current shape and decides he's going to drop those pesky pounds if it kills him. Maybe he meets an unusual stranger on the street with slimming abilities. The point is, he loses weight (or at least takes steps to do so).

And everything goes straight downhill.

* In an issue of the Italian horror comic ''Dylan Dog'' a demon is trying to do good, but [[HeroWithAnFInGood not being familiar with the concept]] he keeps bungling up, with [[NightmareFuel horrific consequences]]. For one of his "good deeds", he sends some magic diet pills to a fat girl who [[WeightWoe wishes to be thin]]. She loses weight near-instantly and gets the figure of a supermodel, but when she wakes up the following day she's wasted to little more than a skeleton. And that's when [[spoiler:[[FromBadToWorse the flesh-eating bugs who've been "slimming her down" from the inside]] break through her skin and devour the rest of her]].

* In ''ComicBook/XMen'', whoever is chosen as Famine in Apocalypse's Horsemen can cause people to become emaciated by touching them.

* In the novelette "The Pill" by Meg Elison, there's a new miracle pill that causes people to lose weight in a matter of days and stay thin afterwards (as long as they keep taking it). But there are two big catches. First, the initial course is ''incredibly'' painful. Second, there's a not-insignificant chance that taking it will kill you. Unfortunately, society at large decides to ignore both of these, and the pressure for everyone to take it grows and grows.

* ''The Monkey Treatment'', by Creator/GeorgeRRMartin. A fat guy who's tried every diet inadvertently signs up for the monkey treatment, in which an invisible magic monkey sits on his back and snatches away all his food before he can eat it. At first, this works great. But then he realizes that for every pound he loses, the monkey gains one, and as it grows bigger its power and malevolence increase as well.

* PlayedForDrama in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2''. The player is treated to gradually watching the tall, broad-shouldered and tough-as-nails cowboy [[spoiler:Arthur Morgan]] gradually waste away to NothingButSkinAndBones from tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that was commonly a death sentence for anyone who contracted it by the late 1800s. [[spoiler:This also [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration affects the cores that are tied to his physical health]]. It's actually possible for him to become ''more'' underweight than the game normally allows, and it's practically guaranteed to happen by the time of the final mission.]]

* '''NOT''' played for laughs in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2''. [[spoiler:The player is treated to gradually watching the tall, broad-shouldered and tough-as-nails cowboy Arthur Morgan gradually waste away to nothing from tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that was a death sentence for anyone who contracted it in 1899. It's actually possible for him to become more underweight than the game ''normally allows''.]]

* In the ''[[{{Creator/ECComics}} Vault of Horror]]'' story “Dying to Lose Weight!”, a traveling doctor offers to help a town’s overweight residents through use of a special pill. It works ''too '' well - those who take the pill lose weight to the point of wasting away and dying. When the doctor returns to the town six months later and is chased into the mausoleum by its angered residents, he comes face to face with the thing that had killed his victims - a giant tapeworm.

* ''Film/TheABCsOfDeath'': In "X is for XXL", Gertrude, an overweight woman, wanders the streets of France as people everywhere taunt her size; she is haunted by images of thin, attractive women. She sadly gorges herself on food before deciding to finally do something about her weight. Using a variety of sharp objects, Gertrude proceeds to cut the fat off of her body. She walks out of the bathtub in a skeletal state and missing all her skin; she poses briefly and then bleeds to death.

** In the YA novel ‘’Literature/{{Elevation}}’’ a man gradually loses weight over several months, though in an unusual twist he doesn’t lose mass. He stays the same size, but gravity slowly stops pulling him down.

* ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'': In "Weight of the World", Trent Appelbaum, a salesman who disappeared in 1989, discovers that his saliva is a catalyst for weight loss after his loan shark Dmitri Kazar lost 75 pounds within 48 hours of drinking from Trent's beer bottle. Dmitri then brings his wife Celeste to him so that she can lose weight. After she and Trent drink from the same water bottle, Celeste loses 23 pounds just as quickly. Trent sees the business potential in his ability as it could be used to wipe out obesity. Drandix Laboratories agrees to pay him $40 million for exclusive access to his ability. However, the Kazars both die of starvation. NTAC determines that there is a protein in Trent's saliva that hyper-accelerates a person's metabolism, stimulating the brain to produce epinephrine and break down fat cells. As such, exposure to the saliva caused the Kazars to burn calories faster than they could take them in, and they starved to death in spite of the fact that they were eating everything that they could get their hands on.

* In the ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit "Jimmy Tango's Fat Busters", Creator/JimCarrey plays the eponymous infomercial host, whose method of losing dozens of pounds in days involves a combination of a suit of heat beads and crystal meth, the "Riding the Snake" method, and leaves all three testimonials alternately celebrating their massive weight loss and reporting extreme physical and mental (up-front but far from exclusively hallucinations) side effects. The last thing to happen is Tango challenging a customer who has [[DevilComplex come to believe he's the Devil]] to a psychic duel ("[[Film/{{Scanners}} SCAN ME]]!"), which ends in the man bleeding from the forehead and passing out.

** The episode "Diet" features Carl betting Meatwad that his new diet plan, "The South Bronx Paradise Diet" -- where he eats a special candy bar before every meal, then gorges himself far more than he would normally -- is more effective than Meatwad cutting calories and exercising. Within hours, Carl is profoundly emaciated, brittle, and turning into a Brundlefly-like horror, because, as Frylock discovers, he's on the South Bronx ''Parasite'' Diet, and has been ingesting larva that are now feeding on his flesh. [[spoiler:At the end, a giant parasite erupts out of him, splitting his body in two, and weighs what's "left".]]

* PlayedForLaughs in the [[Creator/ColumbiaCartoons UPA]] short "The Rise of Duton Lang", where the eponymous portly chemist [[ProfessorGuineaPig starts taking a weight-loss additive of his own invention]] after an embarrassing incident at an awards ceremony. The compound does cause him to lose weight... but not volume. ''And'' it works so well that when Lang stops taking the stuff he ''still'' loses weight, and eventually becomes lighter-than-air and floats away, never to be heard from again.

'''Stick Figure #1:''' ''[[TheReveal (lifts up dress)]]'' "They call it "The Egyptian Cleanse"."

This trope is for works in which weight loss [[GoneHorriblyWrong goes horribly wrong]] (or, even worse, [[GoneHorriblyRight horribly right]]). Maybe the characters [[NothingButSkinAndBones lose too much weight]] and are in danger of disappearing altogether. Maybe they unwittingly sign themselves up for a weight-loss service with overly restrictive (read: lethal) penalties. Maybe the diet is magical and [[PoweredByAForsakenChild requires the sacrificing of children]]. Really nasty examples may overlap with BodyHorror, and self-inflicted magical ones might cross over with BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor.